I hate my job, I love my job

Here's things I like about my job:

It's totally cool, No day is ever the same, I can teach, take care of patients, provide emotional support and spend a lot of time with families. I can wear scrubs or business clothes. My schedule is very flexible. My bosses are pretty approachable and listen to my concerns.

What I don't like:

Pay-not so good. I can be out for 24 hours at a time. I have to be tactful with people who I think are ignoramuses-not the people who may not know things about the donation process, but people who are really against donation and hinder the process(more on this). We are guests in the hospital and I have to play nice with everyone, usually easy for me, but I have limits. And the pay, did I mention I'm not getting rich doing this?

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of personalities. I've been out a lot. I've done about a case a week for the last 7 weeks. That's 24 hours out, not to mention the referrals where I go and evaluate, but the person's not brain dead or not medically suitable or what have you. One weekend, I went out at 10am, got consent, finished by 7am THE NEXT DAY, went home and slept, woke up, went to another hospital, got consent and got home at 9am THE NEXT DAY(that's day 3, if you're keeping score at home). The family's like, "Who's that coming in and out all weekend? What's their name again?"

I have families that have been wonderful. Even in their grief, they wanted to give the gift of life. I've had families who were mad, threatening lawsuits and scaring the bejesus out of the hospital staff and they STILL wanted to help save a life through organ donation. I was screamed at-SCREAMED AT! by a crazy-ass neurologist (is that redundant?). I have spent 23 hours on site only to have the donation come to a screeching halt because the serologies came back positive. I had a nurse be very rude to me while I was giving an inservice on donation after cardiac death and then have the 'nads to say, "A non-heartbeating donor? WELL! You must be desperate for organs." And throughout it all, the family has been bitching like crazy totally supportive. And the baby! Did I mention that Laughing Baby is crawling! God in heaven. She's gone from completely immobile to a whirling dervish in like 3 weeks and I feel like I spend all her awake time picking her up and "refocusing" her energy on toys instead of, say, the electical cords. And she climbs like a monkey. I have NO idea where she got that from. All right, I'm done-before I wear out the caps key. (AM I SHOUTING!)